Ecosia

Our world is engulfed in information. Smartphones, computers, and even TVs all have access to the search engines that we use dozens of times a day without even thinking about it. Even within writing the introduction to this article, I used a search engine twice already. Google, Yahoo, Bing, and many many more allow 24 hour access to virtually anything you could ask for. Now, while search engines like Google are useful and productive when doing homework, I’m beginning to use a smaller site called Ecosia. Why? Because for every search Ecosia has on their website— Ecosia.org— they plant a tree.

With 2017 behind us, issues like climate change, deforestation, biodiversity, and food and water shortages are on the rise. Ecosia attempts to battle these world-wide dilemmas by planting trees across the globe. By planting trees, Ecosia strives to fight climate change, restart previously disrupted water cycles, turn deserts back into fertile forests, provide nutrition, and stabilize economies.

After launching in March of 2015, Ecosia has planted over 19 million trees in almost three years. While this might seem like a lot, the company plans to plant 1 billion trees by the year 2020. The trees themselves are planted at different project sites around the world, each a biodiversity hotspot on our planet. At each site, the search engine partners with a reforestation company to ensure the effectiveness of their trees. Using 80% of its ad revenue, Ecosia currently finances six different projects located in Nicaragua, Peru, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Indonesia.

Whether we want to admit it or not, our planet is being destroyed. Wildfires, rising sea levels, deforestation, carbon emissions, and hurricanes are real issues that are affecting and harming millions of people a day.

So what can you do to help? Well it’s actually quite simple. Just sit back, relax, and answer a few of those unknown questions in the back of your mind.